Michelle Delaine Williams shares how she wrote her latest chapbook, Good Work for Small Hands. Centering around her childhood in Missouri, we discuss the catharsis of writing poetry, becoming a writer, and learning from our younger selves.
My childhood friend and accomplished poet, Michelle Delaine Williams, joins me on Vitally You® to talk about her poetry chapbook, Good Work for Small Hands.
Her book centers around her childhood in Missouri and her relationship with her mother. She shares that reflecting on those memories was profoundly cathartic, which really comes through in several of the poems she recites for us.
Michelle’s poem, Sprout, which she reads beautifully, transports the listener into a young person’s world of feelings. Sprout invites a conversation about taking responsibility for our own lives no matter how they began. Since becoming a grandmother twice within the last 18 months, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we come into this world and the importance of our upbringing in shaping our future. Michelle’s poems are portals to reconnecting with our younger selves and learning the ways that they wish to be present in our lives.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You®, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of ageing, heart intelligence, energy, medicine and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:52
Welcome to the Vitally You® podcast everyone. I'm Dana Frost, your host coming to you this week for a unique episode. My guest this week is a writer and she is one of my childhood through high school classmates, Michelle Delaine Williams, we reconnected on Facebook where I learned that she had published a poetry book well, let me say I learned when we were having our conversation that it's not actually a book, it's considered a chap book. And you will learn later in the episode what that means from the show.
Dana Frost 01:25
Well, anyway, I quickly purchased your book and sat down with it this synthesis winter, it was in February, and fairly immediately, I understood and felt the impact and importance of her writing. So I invited her to come on as a guest. While we were recording our episode, it occurred to me like I had this aha moment when we were talking that her writing is an invitation or a portal for us middle aged women to return to our younger selves, and invite all of ourselves and our stories back to our modern day, woman and heal whatever needs to be seen.
Dana Frost 02:07
Now you'll hear this happen later in the conversation, I just wanted you to be waiting for it anticipating hurt. I also referenced an earlier podcast episode, it was a solo episode about menopause and middle of the night wakefulness as an invitation to connect with your younger selves. And I will include that link in the show notes as well in case you want to revisit that episode, which you might after listening to this episode.
Dana Frost 02:34
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Dana Frost 03:13
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Dana Frost 04:12
This is the technology that is going to support us in the process of moving energy through our body so that we can feel wider so that we can get the blood flowing your blood carries your immune system the immune cells to all the different parts of your body. So you need the energy to be flowing so that blood goes to all parts of your body. If you want to learn more about life waves light therapy patches, there will be a link as always in the show notes. Now I am dedicating this week's episode to National Poetry Month and to all the writers who enrich our worlds with their words.
Dana Frost 04:52
Hey, do any of you have a special book or a favourite book that you've read this year? One of the most recent books that I really enjoyed is called Wave. Walker it is a memoir written by a woman in her 50s. And she's writing the story of basically growing up on a ship with her family as a child chasing down Captain Hooks, journeys. It's a really it's a fascinating story about her deep desire for education, and her parents inability to see what the desires of her heart were, because they were so engrossed in chasing their own dreams. Excellent, excellent story. That's the most recent book I read that I loved.
Dana Frost 05:36
Okay, let's get back to our guest, Michelle Delaine Williams grew up in Missouri and now resides in Portland, Oregon. She is a poet's studio and Athenaeum alone at the attic Institute of Arts and Letters in Portland, where she also co hosted the Fridays on the Boulevard reading series for several years, many of the poems and her chapbook you're going to learn what that means. That book is entitled good work for small hands began in these attic workshops. Good work for small hands is a collection of poems about childhood spaces, those found in the yard, the home and the heart.
Michelle Delaine Williams 06:15
The poems follow the wanderings of a little girl in her Missouri backyard during the 1970s. I told you, we grew up together so as I was reading her book, all of the sights and sounds and places were very familiar to me. I knew this, you know the highway she talked about logging on. Whether lying under a fluffy pink Mimosa tree, picking dandelions for her mama or fending off the advances of a neighbour and Miss shared. Our Narrator navigates all of her longing and confusion. While remaining full of hope and wonder. Michelle's work has appeared in rain magazine, Silk Road review, voice catcher and verse weavers. She has a journalism degree from the University of Missouri Columbia, and works as a marketing writer for the tech industry. She lives with her husband and two cats in the Pacific Northwest woods, where moss and mushrooms have replaced the hollyhocks and violence of her childhood. I have goosebumps just reading her bio, you are all in for such a treat today. Michelle, welcome to the podcast.
Michelle Delaine Williams 07:26
Thank you so much, Dana. It's great to be here.
Dana Frost 07:28
When I saw that you had published a book on Facebook. You know, I immediately I was like, Well, I want to read her poetry. And I was so excited. And then when I got it, I can remember when I it was like It arrived. And I opened it. And it's this beautiful little book. And I sat down one morning in my quiet time with my coffee and started reading it. And I was I was really struck by how we can go through life with people in different stages of our life, whatever Elementary, you know, middle school, high school, college, and then our adult years, and we have these different people in our life. And there's so much we don't know about them. And you gave us such a gift in your book of this window into your upbringing and who you were from the very beginning of when you started your life. So I just want to honour you. And thank you for this masterpiece of poetry that you've given us.
Michelle Delaine Williams 08:28
That's so kind of you. That's a lovely thing to say. I think sometimes, when we're going through those stages, ourselves, we don't really even understand it all until much later. And so what we show to the world, especially when we're little is going to be very different from what might be going on inside. I think it takes a while to unravel all that and really understand it for ourselves.
Dana Frost 08:58
Yeah, it takes like maybe two decades, two to three decades,
Michelle Delaine Williams 09:03
at least two to three decades.
Dana Frost 09:05
So I would love to hear your inspiration, like what inspired you to write good works for small hands.
Michelle Delaine Williams 09:12
Tobe honest, I didn't exactly set out to write this chapbook I've always written poetry and my whole whole life since I was about six years old, honestly. But about 10 years ago, I decided it was really time to focus more deeply on poetry. I've written all sorts of stuff along the way that I wanted to somehow take it to the next level and really go deeper with it. So I dove in I took a number of workshops. I worked with some really amazing mentors and just spent the time that was needed to explore that and work on improving my writing.
Michelle Delaine Williams 09:53
During a period of several years, I wrote about all kinds of things I wrote a lot of Nietzsche poems A lot of more reflective pieces that were just about little moments in time, or maybe character studies of people I know, or relationships. But a lot of those poems ended up being about my mother and my family dynamic. In more in general. Eventually, I had over 100 poem while that I really, I liked. So I started to think about how to organise them. And I put them into different categories, I had them all spread out on the floor, the poems about my childhood, and my mom really stood out to me as a set. And I don't know if you know, but a chat book, my book is a chat book, which is typically 25 to 48 pages or so. And chat books usually are put together around a theme, or maybe some kind of focus area. Or they might tell one big story. Because I had a really strong set of those childhood poems. I decided to organise my book around those. So that's really how it came into being
Dana Frost 11:08
Oh, wow, that is interesting. I didn't I've never heard that term. chapbook. So thank you for sharing that. Michelle. Yeah, I
Michelle Delaine Williams 11:16
think that term, I think it stems from it may be like Victorian times, or it could even be older. But people used to write serial novels. And they would sell a chapter at a time on the streets, they would go out and hock the chapter. And so it became a chap book, a chapter vole. That's where it comes from. And today, they're more commonly books of poems, but I think you could also have a short story chapbook over
Dana Frost 11:45
really interesting,
Michelle Delaine Williams 11:46
I suppose. Yeah. Probably do the old fashion. write a novel that way?
Dana Frost 11:51
Oh, that's really interesting. So I think it would be really fun for us to dive into you reading the poetry that the book is named after good work for small hands, would you be willing to do that for us?
Michelle Delaine Williams 12:06
We'd love to Sure. So the title poem, good work for small hands. Knees in the grass, I plucked dandelions in April, scattered yellow buttons dotting the yard, a small task to take my mind off, to get outside and use my body. What a familiar sound, the quick pop of all that sunshine flooding my hands. At five, the act was not distraction but love on the ground for hours idle, pondering the Rolie polies under the Elm in a shift in breeze, waking the leaves overhead, and a passing car crackling gravel up the hill toward Bell Road. I'd look across to the iris large and off limits, standing royal in their beards against the garden wall. Then I'd move out of the shade into the sunny grass, and carefully gather just enough brightness to place on the table for Mama SATs
Dana Frost 13:15
to eautiful. I love hearing the writer read their work.
Michelle Delaine Williams 13:19
Thank you, thanks.
Dana Frost 13:21
We see this theme of your relationship with your mom, you know, was that hard for you to like, dig in deep and put words on paper, wherever your relationship with your mom was concerned. It
Michelle Delaine Williams 13:35
was actually very cathartic. I think I always had a drive to express something around that relationship. I feel like it was is the biggest relationship of my life. She passed away over 20 years ago now. But after she died, my writing really, really centred on that relationship. Especially at that time, I wanted to somehow express the details of her life. I wanted to like put something out there that validated who she was and what she went through.
Michelle Delaine Williams 14:15
Because I thought I think a lot of women go through things, similar things that she went through, though we don't always hear those stories. So actually, when right after she died, I was trying to write short stories about more about her life and trying to describe that from the outside looking at her but over time I realized I needed to write about my perception of the relationship in it from a more interior point of view rather than I mean, not that I won't write about those things, those details of her life, but it felt more important and more cathartic. It was a part of the grieving process for me Need to actually express some of those things in writing? If that makes sense?
Dana Frost 15:05
Oh, it makes a lot of sense. Michelle, I think that you are a writer. And so I want to just backtrack a little bit to When did you know you wanted to become a writer.
Michelle Delaine Williams 15:16
As I said, I, I was writing in first grade column. I mean, the very first poem I wrote was a little assignment in the first grade, the teacher handed out images to everyone just things she had cut out of whatever magazines and old books, and mine was a picture of two circus bears playing catch with a ball. I don't know why I remember it so strongly. But that just lit me up. It was so fun to like, write a story about this picture. Wow. So then I Oh, I just always wrote things. You know, I wrote little short stories. As a kid, I was a reporter in junior high school. Newspaper, I always wrote poems, and always kept a journal starting at a very young age. Do
Dana Frost 16:07
you have all of your journals? I do. Yeah. And are starting to be
Michelle Delaine Williams 16:14
there quite a hefty number of tubs full of them. Yeah. So that's so interesting, Michelle, because I kept a
Dana Frost 16:22
journal for a year, I kept journals for years. And I don't know if you know this about us. But we, as a family, we lived abroad for 10 years. And, you know, we moved to we moved from North America to South America, and we were there for 10 years. And then we moved to Switzerland. And as a family, you have a lot of stuff that you're taking from place to place wherever you move, even if it's just from home to another home. And when we decided to leave the family home here in Chicago, after our kids had flown the nest, I had a ceremony in my backyard with all my journals, and I actually burned them.
Michelle Delaine Williams 17:01
Oh, wow. That's fascinating.
Dana Frost 17:03
I love that, you know, what I it was, it was just this moment of what are the things that I carry around that maybe I don't need to carry them around. And, and a few of the years, I got used to like letting go of clothes and letting go of items. I mean, I'm actually very sentimental. So it was, it's hard for me to let go of something, but you literally just couldn't put everything that you owned in a container and ship it to the next location.
Dana Frost 17:32
So I learned over time to be okay with letting go and creating, you know, just creating space. And, and so I got to this point of, Okay, I'm leaving, you know, what was the family home for? I think maybe we were there for a decade. And, you know, moving on to the next phase in life. And what do I do with all these journals, because we were really downsizing, we were moving into an apartment or a condominium. And I decided that I would have a ceremony with my journals and just let them go and burn them in the fire.
Dana Frost 18:05
And it made me just feel really light, like, wow, I've made peace and all these different aspects of my past and not that, you know, forgotten them they live in, they live inside of us to the to our energies through who we are, you know, every thing that's ever happened to us, it just becomes a part of who we are in the next iteration. And, and onward we go so
Michelle Delaine Williams 18:27
Exactly. And I've thought about doing that eventually, I have some stories I want to write, you know, that were from a period of my life, I lived in San Francisco after college. I don't know if you knew that. But I was down there for almost 10 years more like eight. And it was just it was in the 90s. I was young and I just have some stories I want to tell from that period.
Michelle Delaine Williams 18:54
So I do want to go back to those journals and kind of review. I don't know how many actual bits and pieces of events are going to be in there. It'll be more like getting into my own head, where what was I thinking and feeling during those times, so that I can then craft the story that I want. But I've thought that other than for that purpose, I've thought it would be a real transformative thing to do eventually, because it's such a personal part of myself that I don't think I need to leave behind.
Dana Frost 19:35
One of the things that I noticed in your poetry and when I hear you talk about like this, your assignment when you were this young girl with these you have the vivid memory of the two bears and you really see it my impression and tell me if I'm if I'm right. My impression is that you have a keen ability to notice details and to retain the memory of those details. Yeah, I
Michelle Delaine Williams 20:02
mean, in some ways I do, like, ask me the plot of the novel I read four months ago. And, please, even though I love reading, and I love stories, but yeah, when it comes to describing a place or a memory, I can get pretty detail oriented with that. And the interesting. The other point about the journals, it's like, and when I think about, oh, I want to, I need to go back through them for this particular story I want to write, when I think about this chapbook, nothing came out of any journal. All these memories are just out of my mind, in my heart. So I think that any story I write about any period of my life is going to be similar, where I'm going to rely more heavily on memory than the actual words in a journal.
Dana Frost 20:58
It's so interesting. I don't know if you're familiar with Rick Rubin's book, the creative act, a way of being
Michelle Delaine Williams 21:05
I do I am familiar with that. I have that book.
Dana Frost 21:08
Yeah, this idea that we actually are all creators, and we're creating something from nothing or, you know, fragments from our, our, all of our experiences. And, you know, how miraculous is it that we can create something like a chat book and hold together and bring something into existence to share with the world. And I don't know why that's just popping into my head right now, as I was hearing you talk, but I was like, wow, it's just so powerful to be able to create something, and bring it into the world.
Michelle Delaine Williams 21:44
Yes. And I mean, it was, it's been a phenomenal feeling to have that my book came out about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago, and being able to hold that in my hands, share it with people. It's a physical thing in regards to Rick Rubin, and I feel like, we are all creative. And it's really more about that the creative act than it is about the final product.
Michelle Delaine Williams 22:11
Ultimately, it's about living our lives in a way that we are slowing down enough to notice things. And it's about making moments to like, I love making food for people I feel some of my most creative times are when I'm just simply making a meal and giving it to a friend, or gardening or whatever, making a cup of tea.
Dana Frost 22:39
He told a little I don't know if that's if you would, if it's considered a parable or a story about I think it was a Japanese man who went to the well, somebody was watching him eat goat, he would go to the well every day, and he had this, this labour, this process of, you know, all the minut details that he would go through to pull water up.
Dana Frost 22:59
nd someone walked over and said, Oh, you know, if you just create this lever, and, you know, you could get the you know, you could get that water so easily, you wouldn't have to be all these, all these tiny steps just to get water. And and I'm not quoting it exactly. But he responded, Well, yeah, but if I did that, then I wouldn't have to think about what I'm doing. And my mind would be somewhere else, instead of putting all my intention into exactly what I'm doing at this moment.
Dana Frost 23:27
And what work was drawing out of it is the intention and the attention on every moment that we're living is actually the point that we don't have to hurry and speed things up and wash over all the little things that we do every day. Right?
Michelle Delaine Williams 23:47
It's about creating a ritual around different moments in your life in your day.
Dana Frost 23:53
So would you say that writing for you, Michelle is a ritual? Well,
Michelle Delaine Williams 23:59
it certainly has been at times and it can be and I expect it will be again, I've had times where every day I would sit down to write and I might, it's just becomes a habit or a part of my morning. You know, and there might be particular ways I start that process, you know, writing in a journal about the day or having a little word play to start it off. Getting a couple of words and then playing around with rhymes or something like that can really ritualize it and bring me out of my mundane life and into more of a creative space. Yeah,
Dana Frost 24:42
I love that. And I know I'm watching you on Facebook, your water coloring and sharing your watercolor works of art, which is really fun.
Michelle Delaine Williams 24:52
That's something I've been doing a little bit more of lately. I'm just sort of getting my feet wet in a way well, I've I've done painting and other visual art along the way, I decided I really wanted to try to explore that a little bit more regularly. So that's been really fun. It takes a different part of my mind. And it's a different approach than playing with words.
Dana Frost 25:19
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna take us back to your chat book. And I will tell you the poem that stood out the most to me, was sprout. And it's a poem about your birth. And I was so struck by it, because I became a grandmother twice over the past 17 months, I think, since August of 13, August 31, of 2022. And then my granddaughter, that was my grandson, and my granddaughter was born October of 2023. And I've thought a lot about how we come into this world.
Dana Frost 25:56
And as I've been really curious about my own upbringing, and my own family, and you know, always feeling like, I'm different from my family, but I was so loved by my family. And then I eventually concluded that this was just my own personal conclusion that our souls actually choose the families that we come into, because they provide the human construct for what we are here to learn in this lifetime. So when I read your poem sprout, because you know, you're writing that as that baby coming out, and yet you have the insights of who you are as a woman, currently, and so would you be willing to read that poem to us, Michelle's?
Michelle Delaine Williams 26:41
I would be happy to, I think that your insights around it are beautiful. Because yeah, this is my 50 some year old self, trying to interpret what my, my baby self may have felt. But it's similarly I always felt like how did I land in this family, but it provided a lot. It's definitely giving me this strength that I have. I'll just go ahead and read and we can talk more sprout, march 20 1966. Nine days old leaves not yet on the tree.
Michelle Delaine Williams 27:24
She's alone on the sofa. Naked legs bloom against dusty blue blue clay. In this picture, everything's okay. It's all right. But swaddle her anything. mimic her last cave. wrap her tight like a bud. Seal her. Protect her unfurled shell. It's the story of spring sprung like shrapnel blast in a field. The unexpected Sprout on the last branch, finally flowering in all her riding, pink faced perfume. off camera mama sobs in the tub. The reality of a baby's sharp cries in the night, her constant fist waving dance captured in an instamatic flash, cue twirling in the disheveled nest, Papa gone, somewhere soothing a 20 year Navy wound absence permeates the image, like a vacuum cleaner roaring from the house next door. But this blossom will make up the difference for lost love. She'll just lie there quiet as a violent and COO.
Dana Frost 28:48
Wow, Michelle, what do you feel when you read that?
Michelle Delaine Williams 28:51
I actually feel pretty emotional. As a little girl I've I my mother was pretty depressed just to get into that detail a little bit. She like father had been an alcoholic for many years. And I kind of came to the picture late I had a couple of older brothers who were they were 16 and 18 When I was born, and then I came along and my father had stopped drinking but then he picked it up again right away so so she left him. And it was hard and she was depressed.
Michelle Delaine Williams 29:29
And we had to live with my great aunt and uncle because my mother didn't really have enough money and so as a little girl, I of course picked up on all that stress and always felt bad for her felt like I wanted to help her I wanted to be good so that I wasn't any extra trouble. So I think this a lot of this comes from that. I came in as a baby I probably I knew that I'll be the good one here. Any more trouble? Actually,
Dana Frost 30:04
I think almost every person can relate to that sense of being a child or a teenager and feeling like they had to carry themselves in a way that would be a benefit to their caregiver, their parent should always say children's feel everything. You don't have to be explicit with your words, they feel the energy that is coming forth. And it's a, it can be a really heavy burden to try to compose oneself. So that we are like being careful about that person who is the supposed to be the caregiver?
Michelle Delaine Williams 30:48
Right. And I think as little kids, we don't know, we don't always understand what's going on, we just feel that we do have our natural inclinations, or our personnel that our natural personalities, some of us are worse than others. And so depending on those things, our lives can go in one direction or another is such a critical time.
Dana Frost 31:15
Okay, that's really important. I think, Michelle, because two people can be under similar circumstances, no two children are treated exactly the same, even if they're under the same roof. But one thing I've observed is that what is it that makes one person respond in a way that's destructive for their future, or another person respond in a way that they grow, as it's very evident that you as a woman took the material that is the leading for who you are, and you created something that's very beautiful with your life. So I admire that.
Dana Frost 31:52
And I think it's just interesting. The ownership that we each have, this is kind of where I take it, you know, my brother, who you know, is battled with addiction his entire life, and that's painful. It's very, very painful. And as I've worked through my choices, whose choices, I really just come to the conclusion, we have personal dominion. And that can feel cold hearted at times. But I don't know, it's just sort of how I've made peace with eventually you have to take ownership for what the life you've been given and create something with it or create something or not or be destructive.
Michelle Delaine Williams 32:30
Yeah, it's so mysterious, in a way. But I agree that we are ultimately responsible for ourselves. Somehow, I learned that, you know, as a kid that to be self sufficient, you know, there was all this chaos going on around me. And instability that I had to rely on myself somehow.
Dana Frost 32:51
And you did that beautifully. Okay, there's so much in here because I was tickled about the way you wrote about Brad, your mother's boyfriend, I felt you a little bit playful. And there were other moments in here that I felt there was this wild heart? Let me say that. And tell me if I'm right, if like if I if I read you, in the way like I'm like, you know, there is this really poised little girl who also has this wild heart?
Michelle Delaine Williams 33:19
Yeah, I would say that describes me, describes me pretty well. I feel like I landed in quite a dysfunctional family situation. And I think, again, back to our previous conversation, I feel like, so fortunate that one, I was able to just make my way out of that. And to that, I don't feel held back by that. And I think I ever did, even while I was in it, I feel like there was always a sense of wonder. And that's what I was really doing for this chapbook.
Michelle Delaine Williams 33:58
But it's kind of how I live my life. Yes, there's suffering. And there are things that are so difficult in our own lives, and certainly out in the world. Every day, we see things that are terrible that are going on, but right alongside all those things. There's always beauty, wonder, connection to be found with ourselves with others with nature, you know, all of that. And I feel like it's the key to a good life, being able to hold both of those things side by side.
Dana Frost 34:32
That's really beautiful. Michelle, thank you for sharing that. I'm gonna go back to your poetry because one, I think it's beautiful when you read it. And you have a poem about your best friend and as I was reading this poem, I was thinking I know who this is, and then you confirm that before we started recording for the podcast, so would you please read to my childhood best friend
Michelle Delaine Williams 34:59
Absolutely. To my childhood best friend. Cleaning the skillet, I smell the sea as eggs in iron crash against the stony sides of my kitchen sink. Sometimes cool summer mornings bring you to mind, a teenybopper sunrise tagging old clothes and chipped cups for the annual sale. Or it's the steady afternoon swell when I'm flat hot and get a flash of mulberry stained feet in Kmart sandals. Pavement waves crusting into air. The wild horizon cuts summer into slivers of glass broken floats in the dust.
Michelle Delaine Williams 35:46
We walked some days all the way past Skateland cracked asphalt pothole roads, kicking gravel ions along Highway 69 trains cranked to a stop across the slope field down by the Purina plant where we never ventured never even let our minds drift. rusted out steel forklift clang beds loaded with feed. Brake sparks in the night. Pet Food production mysteries masked by industrial metal trappings. Thick Missouri Wind. Except at night. I'd lie awake and wander they're here the chin in copper Foghorn. Explore the places where I'm just empty. The ship Creek spaces of my brain. Places where you were filled up with homemade fideo and crock pot Rotel dip. Places where your dad's cared for cars revved up top down parade rides. And you slept snug in the Hall of your four poster bed like a treasure. How was it? I was the one kissing boys freezing your bra in the night?
Dana Frost 37:06
You were quiet.
Michelle Delaine Williams 37:08
I played it cool. You fell asleep first. I stayed up looking for the moon. You had all you ever wanted in a backyard full of Willow. I had an ache for the sea long before I ever saw it. You were a cliff under blue skies. I was a wave crashing against you and pulling away.
Dana Frost 37:34
While does Barbara now has Barbara read this poem. Michelle. She has Yeah. And what was Did she have any reflections that you could share? Nothing too
Michelle Delaine Williams 37:47
huge. I think she she really liked Yeah, she felt, you know, happy that I included her in the book. We still have a nice friendship. Yeah, we're just kind of two peas in a pod when we see each other.
Dana Frost 37:58
And for those of us from obviously Michelle, when I graduated from high school together, and there are so many parts of this, like I lived in the neighborhood as her friend Barbara. So I know the skate land, and I know about highway 69 and the Purina plant and all of these visuals, the Rotel, the and the fideo. It's like, you know, takes me right back to where I was raised in that period of time.
Dana Frost 38:24
And you also get this like weeding that I had this, this feeling the similar feeling to you, Michelle, different circumstances but similar and that I would go to my friend's home. And notice that some of the differences between our upbringings and as teenagers, we can't help but make those comparisons. And I think that that can be kind of challenging when we're in those teenage years. Did you find solace when you were Barbara's home.
Michelle Delaine Williams 38:56
I loved her parents. Her mom was very mothering, which my mom wasn't so much. She always had homemade food and was always right there. We often often spent the night at their place. And her dad funny. My stepdad was pretty funny too. But so yeah, it was comforting there.
Dana Frost 39:19
I think this expression of, you know, your experience as a child. Do you have any insight for people who read this book and think, Wow, I wonder if I could start writing about my childhood. Do you have any insights for them?
Michelle Delaine Williams 39:37
I would say just do it. Don't get hung up on the end result. Just start writing down. Anything that comes to mind and don't worry about what it sounds like. Don't worry about getting the right word. Don't worry about capturing all the details, the things in my chapbook here so Some of its made up. Some of its true. It's okay to kind of flesh things out.
Dana Frost 40:07
Yeah, yeah, you're putting kind of a framework on the essence of the story. Right?
Michelle Delaine Williams 40:14
Yeah.
Dana Frost 40:15
Have you ever been a writing teacher? Or you know, or have you ever, like supported people through the writing process using writing as a tool,
Michelle Delaine Williams 40:26
never an act, you know, professionally, never really a teacher, per se. But certainly, like, I love that sharing, writing process with people. And so I've been in loads of workshops, and I've run a few of my own, where you just, I might come up with a writing prompt, and then everyone goes through that together, and we support each other, the writing? Yeah,
Dana Frost 40:51
that's what I was thinking about. I should have maybe framed that difference. It wasn't necessarily professional teaching. But yeah, just providing the support and the community for writing. Yeah,
Michelle Delaine Williams 41:01
and I've mentored a lot of people that are, you know, trying to write do writing themselves and given feedback on people's novels or, or actually copy edited them. I do edit and write professionally as well. Oh, yeah. I love that process of just working through creative writing and generating ideas. In community. It's, it's really great.
Dana Frost 41:24
Well, Michelle, we are nearing the end of our time together. And I want to thank you for reading your poetry, it's was really such a pleasure, having read, you know, read all of the poems to hear you read them with your, the energy behind your voice, and the cadence. And I really appreciated that. And I know our listeners going to are going to enjoy it as well. I want to ask you the question that I asked all my guests, and that is, what does feeling younger, while growing older mean to you?
Michelle Delaine Williams 41:58
I think as we get older, there's kind of a lightness and confidence that is available to us. That brings kind of a new level of vitality to the way we can live. I think it requires a certain amount of self care, you know, knowing what foods are best for us getting good exercise and enough sleep. But for me, when those things are imbalanced, I feel, I feel like more of myself than ever, which for me, that means connecting to a very young and vital and childlike part of myself.
Dana Frost 42:35
That's really beautiful. And you, I you know, I want to say to the listeners, Michelle's book is such a treasure trove, you will maybe see yourself in her words, and I think it's, at least I've always experienced that opportunity to see myself and who I was at younger stages. And, Michelle, I think that your book really is, it's an invitation for that.
Dana Frost 43:06
I'll have to go back I haven't I actually did a podcast episode on menopause and how so many women wake up in the middle of the night during menopause. And what is that middle of the night wake up. And I positive that it's it's an invitation to look at yourself in your younger years and invite in that middle of the night when you can't go back to sleep. Don't waste that time. You know, ask which which version of me from all my years of living wants to come forward and have a conversation with me in this? You know, middle of the night, wake up? And I feel like your book is this little portal into that invitation. I
Michelle Delaine Williams 43:47
love that. As someone who wakes up in the middle of the night somewhat regularly. I might have to do that next time. So great.
Dana Frost 43:56
Yeah, I'll find that episode and put the link in the show notes for everybody. But Michelle, thank you so much for being with us this week on the vital your podcast. Thank you for having me. It
Michelle Delaine Williams 44:07
was it was really a pleasure.
Dana Frost 44:09
Thank you everyone for joining us for this very special episode, featuring Michelle Delaine Williams and her book of poetry good work for small hands. Now I know that you're gonna want to purchase her book, her checkbook and you can purchase it directly from finishing line press and I will have the link in the show notes. It is also sold on Amazon and at Barnes and Nobles.
Dana Frost 44:35
Let me know how this episode resonated with you. I really invite you to invite all of your younger selves back to yourself and do a little bit of bringing your curiosity to the conversation and I believe as I mentioned earlier that this book is a portal for you. If you are enjoying a Vitaliy up podcast I invite you if you haven't already, please leave a review you will make me smile you will make my heart feel so glad and grateful. If you have not subscribed please hit subscribe and download.
Dana Frost 45:12
The more subscribers and downloads we have this moves the podcast app, whether it's in Spotify, so if you subscribe to it on Spotify or Apple or any of the other podcast platforms, it really does give the podcast a boost. So, as always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours and until next time, Bye everybody.